It was the SL2 which was introduced to address dealer concerns regarding SBL setup.
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Fellow NBL owner here - back in 2011 when I got mine, I was told 193 pairs including special order piano black. Never seen a pair in that finish, would love to.
Short answer seems to be not many, whoever was given the right info!
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In my experience, the SBL is far easier to move around, especially if one has cross head screws sunk into the floor. So for a dealer they are easy to lift in and out of the dem room. They even have a handle on the back. Iāve moved them upstairs when decorating, with no problems. SL2s are much harder to set up, for me at least. The spring base and that infernal tweeter arm make them much harder to move around. I can set up SBLs, including the gasket seal, much more quickly than I can SL2s.
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Actually in April 2002 they were Ā£6,925 and the passive crossovers cost all of Ā£695. I went to the factory to select the cabinets before they were assembled. At that time I think they were already thinking about discontinuing the model owing to issues of, or with, the cabinet manufacturer.
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Ā£17k at current prices
I understand that the NBL was more complicated to build than anticipated and it saw a price increase in its limited run time. Looking at other passive speakers today I would expect a NBL to be way more than that, no?
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Iā ve never owned SBL, but gaskets excpted, donāt think were so tricky to sort out. On the contrary, the SL2s i had, were a n.ightmare to level and align
Absoluletely!
Yes, I would agree. RPI likely only part of the story. The NBL is seriously complicated inside and that is on top of the curved construction. Tiny production run over which to amortise development costs as well. I suspect you would be approaching the Titan 808 cost region now - 20k plus plus.
Dealers didnāt like the silicone seal. I also saw in demo rooms where the aluminium pads had obviously been penetrated leaving the mid/bass box out of alignment.
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Yes, the replacements (Focal) are really very different and not something JV would have liked Iām pretty sure.
Anyway this is the situation and be done with that - each to their own.
As for NBL, Iāve never even heard them but would love a pair if they could be supported.
Same with SL2.
I have had nSats, IBL, SBL, Intro, Allae and now have S400.
Naim loudspeakers were somehow love or hate, maybe due to lousy setup or taste ?
I think garyi is right, unfortunately Naim never created a massive profit business in making these visionary loudspeakers.
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I think that in the context of a full Naim chain, if people like the system character/presentation, this loudspeakers make lot of sense.
For profitability, thatā s true because many dealers and probably Naim itself have never been commited enough to promote them
In Bristol youād thank the driver with āCheers Driveā.
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This is a proper system!
That sounds more like the Allae.
The Allae was more of a super Credo - indeed early on it was referred to as the Super-Credo.
Clive is correct that the SL2 was designed not only to further develop ideas founded with the SBL, but also to add new ideas and to remove the need for the sticky gasket, which in theory would make dealer set-up easier. The result was truly an engineerās loudspeaker with little or no regard for the concerns of accountants, which was of course a bit problematic when it came time for salesā¦
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IIRC, when the S600 was launched, was a bit cheaper than SL2
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I was lucky enough to go on a factory visit last Thursday, invited by my dealer, Winchester Hi-Fi. I took great heart in seeing SL2s in the small room where Naim equipment is listened to by technicians and engineers after servicing.
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No grills on the factory SL2s, not even setup correctly with no movement on the tweeter arm along with other setup issuesā¦
SL2s setup correctly are sublime but so are the SBLs, once setup right both deliver
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